"But it is not all, my Marah! Yes, I call you mine by virtue of the strongest attachment man ever felt for woman! Marah Rocke, you are the only woman who ever inspired me with a feeling worthy to be called a passion——"
"Colonel Le Noir, how dare you blaspheme this house of mourning by such sinful words? You forget where you stand and to whom you speak."
"I forget nothing, Marah Rocke; nor do I violate this sanctuary of sorrow"—here he sank his voice below his usual low tones—"when I speak of the passion that maddened my youth and withered my manhood—a passion whose intensity was its excuse for all extravagances and whose enduring constancy is its final, full justification!"
Before he had finished this sentence Marah Rocke had calmly arisen and pulled the bell rope.
"What mean you by that, Marah?" he inquired.
Before she replied a servant, in answer to the bell, came to the door and tried the latch, and, finding it locked, rapped.
With a blush that mounted to his forehead and with a half-suppressed imprecation, Colonel Le Noir went and unlocked the door and admitted the man.
"John," said Mrs. Rocke, quietly, "show Colonel Le Noir to the apartment prepared for him and wait his orders." And with a slight nod to the guest she went calmly from the room.
Colonel Le Noir, unmindful of the presence of the servant, stood gazing in angry mortification after her. The flush on his brow had given way to the fearful pallor of rage or hate as he muttered inaudibly:
"Insolent beggar! contradiction always confirms my half-formed resolutions. Years ago I swore to possess that woman, and I will do it, if it be only to keep my oath and humble her insolence. She is very handsome still; she shall be my slave!"